We're a bit slow on raiding progression (we have a lot of folks who are slow at getting to 90 or getting geared up) but we got Stone Guard tonight (we were 8/8 HM in DS). I didn't plan to go WW for raiding but things worked out in a way that it worked best for us. I was the only melee and topped the meters against some pretty competitive folks who were equally geared.

I found that at the start of a fight, that is where we'll most likely have resource issues. It is very tough to dump energy, and Mastery procs really work against you rather than help you (a Mastery proc means you can't dump Chi or Energy very efficiently). Once you get into the fight, it gets much better.

We also don't have huge CDs like, say, a Hunter, (our only CD besides Xuen you can use at the start of the fight is Energizing Brew, and our resource situation makes popping EB at the start difficult) so at the beginning of the fight, even if you pop Xuen, you aren't going to get big numbers. The same goes for Herolust-we're already so close to getting energy capped that we have a tough time getting the full benefit out of Herolust. Fists of Fury is also difficult to use right out of the gate, thanks to energy dumping issues and needing to get up our Tiger Palm buff.

That said, our single target and AOE feels strong but balanced, and we have tons of defensive CDs and mobility which is great for a melee. Expel Harm is seeing SO MUCH use! Not as much utility as, say, Ret, but its fine. The Crit buff is actually a bit more difficult to come by so that buff is actually pretty helpful to raid comps, especially in 10 man.

My logs for Stone Guard last night, which we killed on the famous Last Pull. I found Fists of Fury hard to use with all the void zone and traps on the floor (constant moving). WTB glyph that lets me channel while moving tbh.

My logs for Stone Guard last night, which we killed on the famous Last Pull. I found Fists of Fury hard to use with all the void zone and traps on the floor (constant moving). WTB glyph that lets me channel while moving tbh.

I try to use TEB during trinket procs as long as theres more than 5 stacks available. Ideally I want to have around 7-9 stacks when I do, though. Depends a lot on the situation.

And when I know boss is gonna die in the next 10-15 seconds I usually pop it just so I'll end the fight with 0 stacks (as in not to waste any).

There's some math over at EJ that basically says "it doesn't matter" when it comes to Tigereye Brew. All you really need to do is make sure you don't cap your stacks. It definitely helps to pop it during AOE situtaions (especially if you have high stacks, obviously). That's probably when I notice it the most. Otherwise, I've got a WA set to show me when its at about 8 stacks, and I'll use it either right then and there or wait for something like Heroism, Xuen, Potions or whatever. Sometimes if I can I'll try to line it up with a Fists of Fury or a Rising Sun Kick.

Herm, does anyone wanna talk about the Crit Building? I've seen it online and on "Ask Mr.Robot"... It seems that hit=exp (7,5%) > crit > agi > haste > mastery is stacking better than haste>crit... at least for what i texted on hcs and on dummies... Any explanations?

The weights we have are based on tests we ran with SimC 505-1. The developers have let us know that they made some major changes to Fists of Fury in the next release, so we will be looking at the weights for this spec again as soon as the code for 505-2 is tightened up.

My logs for Stone Guard last night, which we killed on the famous Last Pull. I found Fists of Fury hard to use with all the void zone and traps on the floor (constant moving). WTB glyph that lets me channel while moving tbh.

Some quirks I noticed with TEB:
- Pulling a raidboss will remove any saved up TEB stacks and buffs you had, so it's not possible to pre-stack before the bossfight.
- Combo Breaker: Tiger Palm does not increase your TEB stacks. CB:BoK does increase them however.

---------- Post added 2012-10-05 at 01:44 AM ----------

Also: If you FoF with an enemy targeted, the 5th (last) tick of FoF will get clipped....

The weights we have are based on tests we ran with SimC 505-1. The developers have let us know that they made some major changes to Fists of Fury in the next release, so we will be looking at the weights for this spec again as soon as the code for 505-2 is tightened up.

I just checked out these new changes, and one of them is changing FoF to scale with haste (which it does not). So don't put too much faith in these new changes yet :P

I had no issue with energy capping while playing intelligently at low ger levels on beta. The issue arises around 6.6-6.7k haste rating where you literally can't dump fast enough during bloodlust, and haste loses a significant amount of value because of it. The crit build you're seeing most likely came from the heroic profile, where it has roughly 6.7k haste already causing the weights to flip.

I just checked out these new changes, and one of them is changing FoF to scale with haste (which it does not). So don't put too much faith in these new changes yet :P

Are you sure about that? I thought so too on beta, but on live my castbar addon (named castbars iirc) shows a reduced channel time for FoF with more haste. I'm going to test this with exact time stamps in the log when I'm home from work.

Originally Posted by Mihir

Also: If you FoF with an enemy targeted, the 5th (last) tick of FoF will get clipped....

I think a lot of mediocre and even good WWs are overly obsessed about FoF. It is so difficult to use for DPS gain both rotationally and positionally that most of the players would probably see their DPS rise when dropping it altogether and just perfecting the rotation without it.

Here are few situations where using FoF will probably lead to a DPS loss:

Having Rising Sun Kick cooldown finish during channel

Having Tiger Palm debuff drop during channel

You or tank being forced to move during channel

Capping energy during channel

Having Energizing Brew cooldown finish during channel

To prove my point, here's my log from Wednesday where I was initially ranked 39 (dropped to 61 since then) in Stone Guard without ever touching FoF. Note that we didn't even have 10% melee haste buff for this fight, which would've increased my DPS significantly.

The weights we have are based on tests we ran with SimC 505-1. The developers have let us know that they made some major changes to Fists of Fury in the next release, so we will be looking at the weights for this spec again as soon as the code for 505-2 is tightened up.

One benefit to using FoF is that it is our biggest Chi spender, which stacks Tigereye Brew faster. This is in addition to it being our 2nd highest damage per ability spells, and giving us a period to regenerate some energy while doing damage.

FoF is not an automatic win. It has an opportunity cost associated with it. My gripes are that it is awkward, and it sucks for AOE.

The obsession with FoF is mostly because of a blizz statement, they want us to use it rotationally. It is only a very small DPS gain right now, but if to much WWs drop it out of their rotation, they'll probably buff it (or nerf other spells) to get to their goal. And its the most "complicated" ability to use, as others have pointed out, to maximize our dps, so understanding the mechanics of the ability is important and using it to its maximal potency is important.

To my tests: Though the castbar indicates a shorter channel time, thus FoF scaling with haste, the real behaviour is really strange. E.g. a test selfbuffed, with about 10% haste on my gear. The two lines on the top speak for themself, the numbers in the bottom are the damage ticks coming out.

Those were the 5 FoF ticks, the log isn't that accurate, but overall we have ~ 1 second per tick, indicating it not scaling with haste. The fists of fury "buff" on myself was even a bit longer than 4 seconds.

Overall the cast time of the spell was reduced, but somehow one tick got lost. The ~1.2 seconds between the first two ticks is really strange. I double checked the logs and checked it in Skada, there were only 4 ticks.

So concluding: Yes, it does scale with haste. How? There would have to be much more testing, especially where one tick gets lost (as you see, it is in both cases not the last tick just not coming out, and in both cases I had the dummy targeted) and with which haste effects the spell scales.

Did it do the same amount of damage in both tests, all other things being equal? If so, it doesn't scale with haste (?)

4.22 sec channel time vs. 2.944 sec channel. It might be doing the same amount of damage in a smaller time window, which is technically more damage per second, but equal damage per cast (which also means damage per chi spent is the same in both cases).

This means different things to different playstyles, but until it hits harder, it's still situational for me.